The Life of George Borrow [3]
years later, were to be published the books of her second son, then unborn. The widow of John Murray the First had married in 1795 Lieutenant Henry Paget of the West Norfolk Militia. Years later (27th March 1843) George Borrow wrote to John Murray, Junr., third of the line:
"I am at present in Norwich with my mother, who has been ill, but is now, thank God, recovering fast. She begs leave to send her kind remembrances to Mr Murray. She knew him at Sandgate in Kent FORTY- SIX years ago, when he came to see his mother, Mrs P[aget]. She was also acquainted with his sister, Miss Jane Murray, {5a} who used to ride on horseback with her on the Downs. She says Captain [sic] Paget once cooked a dinner for Mrs P. and herself; and sat down to table with his cook's apron on. Is not this funny? Does it not 'beat the Union,' as the Yankees say?"
The first child of the marriage was born in 1800, it is not known exactly when or where. This was John, "the brother some three years older than myself," whose beauty in infancy was so great "that people, especially those of the poorer classes, would follow the nurse who carried him about in order to look at and bless his lovely face," {6a} with its rosy cheeks and smiling, blue-eyed innocence. On one occasion even, an attempt was made to snatch him from the arms of his nurse as she was about to enter a coach. The parents became a prey to anxiety; for the child seems to have possessed many endearing qualities as well as good looks. He was quick and clever, and when the time came for instruction, "he mastered his letters in a few hours, and in a day or two could decipher the names of people on the doors of houses and over the shop windows." {6b} His cleverness increased as he grew up, and later he seems to have become, in the mind of Captain Borrow at least, a standard by which to measure the shortcomings of his younger son George, whom he never was able to understand.
For the next three years, 1800-3, the regiment continued to hover about the home counties. The Peace of Amiens released many of the untried warriors, who had enlisted "until the peace," their adjutant having to find new recruits to fill up the gaps. War broke out again the following year (18th May 1803), and the Great Terror assumed a phase so critical as to subdue almost entirely all thought of party strife. On 5th July Ann Borrow gave birth to a second son, in the house of her father. At the time Captain Borrow was hunting for recruits in other parts of Norfolk, in order to send them to Colchester, where the regiment was stationed. In due course the child was christened George Henry {7a} at the church of East Dereham, and, within a few weeks of his birth, he received his first experience of the vicissitudes of a soldier's life, by accompanying his father, mother, and brother to Colchester to rejoin the regiment. The whole infancy of George Borrow was spent in the same trailing restlessness. Napoleon was alive and at large, and the West Norfolks seemed doomed eternally to march and countermarch in the threatened area, Sussex, Kent, Essex.
No efforts appear to have been made to steal the younger brother, although "people were in the habit of standing still to look at me, ay, more than at my brother." {7b} Unlike John in about everything that one child could be unlike another, George was a gloomy, introspective creature who considerably puzzled his parents. He compares himself to "a deep, dark lagoon, shaded by black pines, cypresses and yews," {7c} beside which he once paused to contemplate "a beautiful stream . . . sparkling in the sunshine, and . . . tumbling merrily into cascades," {7d} which he likened to his brother.
Slow of comprehension, almost dull-witted, shy of society, sometimes bursting into tears when spoken to, George became "a lover of nooks and retired corners," {7e} where he would sit for hours at a time a prey to "a peculiar heaviness . . . and at times . . . a strange sensation of fear, which occasionally amounted to horror," {7f} for which there was no apparent cause. In
"I am at present in Norwich with my mother, who has been ill, but is now, thank God, recovering fast. She begs leave to send her kind remembrances to Mr Murray. She knew him at Sandgate in Kent FORTY- SIX years ago, when he came to see his mother, Mrs P[aget]. She was also acquainted with his sister, Miss Jane Murray, {5a} who used to ride on horseback with her on the Downs. She says Captain [sic] Paget once cooked a dinner for Mrs P. and herself; and sat down to table with his cook's apron on. Is not this funny? Does it not 'beat the Union,' as the Yankees say?"
The first child of the marriage was born in 1800, it is not known exactly when or where. This was John, "the brother some three years older than myself," whose beauty in infancy was so great "that people, especially those of the poorer classes, would follow the nurse who carried him about in order to look at and bless his lovely face," {6a} with its rosy cheeks and smiling, blue-eyed innocence. On one occasion even, an attempt was made to snatch him from the arms of his nurse as she was about to enter a coach. The parents became a prey to anxiety; for the child seems to have possessed many endearing qualities as well as good looks. He was quick and clever, and when the time came for instruction, "he mastered his letters in a few hours, and in a day or two could decipher the names of people on the doors of houses and over the shop windows." {6b} His cleverness increased as he grew up, and later he seems to have become, in the mind of Captain Borrow at least, a standard by which to measure the shortcomings of his younger son George, whom he never was able to understand.
For the next three years, 1800-3, the regiment continued to hover about the home counties. The Peace of Amiens released many of the untried warriors, who had enlisted "until the peace," their adjutant having to find new recruits to fill up the gaps. War broke out again the following year (18th May 1803), and the Great Terror assumed a phase so critical as to subdue almost entirely all thought of party strife. On 5th July Ann Borrow gave birth to a second son, in the house of her father. At the time Captain Borrow was hunting for recruits in other parts of Norfolk, in order to send them to Colchester, where the regiment was stationed. In due course the child was christened George Henry {7a} at the church of East Dereham, and, within a few weeks of his birth, he received his first experience of the vicissitudes of a soldier's life, by accompanying his father, mother, and brother to Colchester to rejoin the regiment. The whole infancy of George Borrow was spent in the same trailing restlessness. Napoleon was alive and at large, and the West Norfolks seemed doomed eternally to march and countermarch in the threatened area, Sussex, Kent, Essex.
No efforts appear to have been made to steal the younger brother, although "people were in the habit of standing still to look at me, ay, more than at my brother." {7b} Unlike John in about everything that one child could be unlike another, George was a gloomy, introspective creature who considerably puzzled his parents. He compares himself to "a deep, dark lagoon, shaded by black pines, cypresses and yews," {7c} beside which he once paused to contemplate "a beautiful stream . . . sparkling in the sunshine, and . . . tumbling merrily into cascades," {7d} which he likened to his brother.
Slow of comprehension, almost dull-witted, shy of society, sometimes bursting into tears when spoken to, George became "a lover of nooks and retired corners," {7e} where he would sit for hours at a time a prey to "a peculiar heaviness . . . and at times . . . a strange sensation of fear, which occasionally amounted to horror," {7f} for which there was no apparent cause. In